Cultural Geography Problems Field Trip Route Map

Group 2

This 9 inch equatorial distant

map is about
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zj7sRoHr6CwI.ksdgUJUlqQ6w
1:175333333 scale
This 1 inch bar represents ~2200 miles
2200

4400

6600

Stop
Route

The previous page shows the route map of Group 2s virtual field trip. The virtual tour explores five regions that are
affected by cultural problems pertaining to language, religion, politics, urbanization, and human-environment interaction.
The first stop explores a language problem in England where minority languages have found little use in the grand
scheme of English society and therefore lack official recognition by the government. It is argued that too many languages
in a society prevents smooth functioning; however, the language diversity problem in England is an interesting problem to
explore as it is analogous to the language problem affecting the larger scale of the Europe Union where foreign countries
have to solve issues together on a daily basis.
The second stop takes the tour 3,883 miles east to explore a religion problem in Xinjian, China where a small group of
religious extremists have taken advantage of long-standing tension between two ethnic groups to instigate violence under
the pretense of protecting their own religious freedom. This religion problem found interest in the eyes of Group 2 as their
own country, the United States with its very large global military presence, was involved in a campaign in a destabilized
region where violent religion problems have risen in recent years. Group 2 is interested in seeing how the Chinese
governments solution to religion problems will differ to that of current coalition forces in the Middle East.
The third stop takes the tour to Washington DC, United States in order to explore a political problem regarding the
percentage of women making up the US governing body. Women currently hold only 19% of the seats in US Congress. It
is argued that because voter turnout of women matches or exceeds that of men, it behooves both male and female
politicians to use their power and influence to address issues facing women voters as doing so would gain their political
support. However, the political problem does not pertain to the representation of voter-eligible women, the political issue
arises when Group 2 perceives it to be problematic that women are disproportionately involved in politics compared to
their makeup of the total US population. Group 2 is interested in this problem because the idea that women are exposed
to ideas that their gender should affect career choice could have a very apparent effect on the composition of the
American government.
The fourth stop takes the virtual tour to Shanghai, China to explore a problem created by the increased industrialization of
its urbanized coasts. This densely-populated region of China has seen rapid industrial growth over the past few decades.
The bolstering of the coastal industrial economy has come at the expense of the environment: specifically, the quality of
the air and coastal waters have been adversely affected as a result of urbanizations subsequent industrialization. This
problem interests Group 2 because it is an example of how reckless expansion of human infrastructure can cause
problems that would otherwise have been avoided via government regulation.

The final stop takes the tour to the state of Maryland, United States to explore the problem of human interaction with the
environment. The environment being affected by human actions is waterways not only in Maryland but throughout the
United States. Waste from the burning of fossil fuel ends up inside of waterways and adversely affects water quality and is
hazardous to wildlife. This problem interests the group because even though some humans may feel they are separate
from the natural environment, the reality of the impact of American waterways show that our dependence on natural
resources and environment should, in theory, hold humans more accountable for their actions.
Following the final stop, you might find yourself back to where you started the virtual tour: the tour might have started in
your very bedroom, a school library, classroom, or office. It may even have happened through your smartphone device
while you were traveling via public transit. Regardless, Group 2 hopes that you are more knowledgeable about the five
cultural problems covered in the tour; ideally, perhaps you will now feel more inclined to keep an eye out for cultural
problems that may potentially affect your own region and use your own personal skills to draft and communicate solutions
to address or dampen the impact of local cultural problems.